Language education policy in Nepal and the denial of the right to speak in Indigenous languages
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August 16, 2021
Language education policy in Nepal
and the denial of the right to speak
in Indigenous languages
Edition 7, 2021
Prem Phyak
DOI: 10.37839/MAR2652-550X7.7
Language education policy (LEP) in Nepal has historically been a contested issue.
Reviewing documents relating to Nepal’s LEP from the 1950s, I examine how
Nepal’s policy has misinterpreted multilingualism, constructing deficit views of
Indigenous languages, popularly known as ‘mother tongues’, and violated the
constitutional rights of Nepali communities to preserve and promote their language
and culture.
The historical construction of
monolingualism
Nepal’s LEP is historically linked to the state’s project of nationalism. Education for
the masses was not accessible until 1951; and during the Rana regime (1854-1951)
education for the public was perceived to be a threat to the ruling class. Toward the
end of the Regime, some Bhāṣā Pāṭhśālās (language schools) were established for
the public which promoted Nepali as the medium of education. The modernisation of
education through systematic policy change began after the fall of the Rana regime.
Unfortunately, the subsequent LEPs embraced a monolingual ideology and
reinforced monolingual nationalism.
The autocratic Panchayat regime (1960-1990), for example, embraced ek-desh-ek-
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bhaashaa (one-nation-one-language) ideology, which defined Nepali nationalism as a
homogenous community of the people speaking the same language. Traditionally
known as Parbate Kurā or Gorkhā Bhāṣā, Nepali is the mother tongue of the rulers,
mainly the Ranas and Shahs, and the dominant caste group, Khas-Arya. The Regime
promoted Nepali as the sole official language and banned the use of Indigenous
languages in schools, courts, and government offices.
A policy report of Nepal’s National Education Planning Commission (NNEPC),
written by US expert, Dr Hugh B. Wood, recommended the use of Nepali as the sole
medium of instruction for schools and universities. Regarding mass education as way
of strengthening ‘nationalism’, the Commission (1956) stated that Nepali should be
the sole medium of instruction for school and tertiary education to develop its status
as a ‘true national language’. The Commission’s report banned the use of the local
mother tongues in school playground. It stated that giving space to local mother
tongues in education would be counterproductive to the development of Nepali as a
national language.
Founded on the ideology of nationalism as an imagined community of homogenous
language speakers, the state’s education policies had an integrationist approach to
linguistically, ethnically, and culturally diverse communities; aiming to produce
‘ideal’ Nepali persons who speak one language (Nepali) and follow Hindu as the
national religion. Textbooks, exam systems, teacher recruitment policies and
curriculum development processes were all nationalised. In this process, the state,
as Lava Deo Awasthi, Chairperson of the Language Commission, argues ‘imported’
Western language ideologies such as monolingualism and standard language
ideology. Monolingual ideology in education not only reproduced the cultural and
symbolic capital of Nepali, but also, and perhaps more importantly, reinforced the
‘deficit ideology’ of multilingualism and Indigenous languages. This ideology
devalues the importance of multilingualism and considers Indigenous languages to
be a problem in education.
Indigenous communities resisted the one-nation-one-language state policy by
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organising clandestine campaigns and literacy classes, even though the state
restricted freedom of speech and activist activities before 1990 and policed,
arrested, and punished Indigenous activists.
Language rights and multilingualism in
education after 1990
Due to the People’s Movement in 1990, a multiparty democratic regime was restored
after 30 years, opening up political space for historically marginalised groups. The
1990 Constitution, recognised Nepal’s linguistic, ethnic, and cultural diversity as
part of the state’s identity, and subsequent policy emphasised the need for mother
tongue education, at least in words. However, the state could not address linguistic
and cultural diversity in education, and instead promoted English as the medium of
instruction through the privatisation of education.
Following the provisions of the Constitution, Indigenous communities and ethnic
minorities formed their own organisations to collectively ensure the right to use
their mother tongues in the public sphere. Under the leadership of the Nepal
Federation of Indigenous Nationalities, Indigenous communities lobbied political
parties and government and organised a series of street movements in support of
education in mother tongues; to preserve and promote their cultures and lands; and
to use their mother tongues for official purposes.
In 2006, there was another People’s Movement that overthrew the long history of
the monarchy and created more political space for Indigenous and marginalised
communities. The Interim Constitution of 2007 guaranteed the right to use and
obtain education in mother tongues. In 2015, the Constituent Assembly drafted and
approved the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, which states
that Nepal is a ‘multilingual, multicultural, and multi-ethnic country.’ Although the
Constitution has not fully addressed the voices of Indigenous people, women,
Madhesis, Dalits, and other marginalised groups, it includes multilingualism as the
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state’s ideology and references to the right to use mother tongues in public spheres;
as well as stating that citizens will not be discriminated against on the basis of their
linguistic, cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. The census has identified 123
languages and 125 different ethnic groups; and the government has recognised 59
communities as Indigenous peoples of Nepal with unique linguistic, cultural, and
historical identities.
Nepal’s Ministry of Education (MoE) has developed a number of policies and plans to
implement these constitutional provisions. One of the major priorities is the mother-
tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) policy. With a goal to ensure
access, equity, and quality in education, the MoE first piloted the MTB-MLE program
in nine different languages (Athapariya, Santhali, Rajbangshi, Urau, Maithili, Rana
Tharu, Magar, Nepali, and Tamang) in six districts in 2007-2009. The design of the
program was informed by Indigenous epistemology, ecology, and place: the creation
and implementation of plans; materials development and use; and classroom
pedagogies based on local knowledge, cultures, history, and place. Teachers,
parents, students, and other members of the community collaborated on ways to use
local knowledge in the classroom. Despite some challenges, the program was
considered an innovative, transformative and engaged approach to multilingual
education, contributing to increased school attendance among minority communities
and these students’ meaningful participation in classroom activities.
The MTB-MLE was the first policy document that explicitly highlighted the use of
mother tongues as a medium of instruction in schools. The policy articulates the
need to use mother tongues as a medium of instruction for equitable and sustainable
literacy and academic knowledge of the children from minoritised language
communities.
In its School Sector Reform Plan (2007-2016) and School Sector Development Plan
(2016-2023), the MoE also emphasised the use of mother tongues as a medium of
instruction to ensure equitable and quality learning for all children. These plans
have included the activities such as materials development, teacher training, and
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awareness-raising programs to implement the MTB-MLE policy.
In addition to the MTB-MLE, Nepal’s government has produced numerous other
expert reports, policies, and action plans for multilingual education. The report of
Languages Policy Recommendation Commission (1994) was one of the country’s first
comprehensive language education policy documents and in some ways highlights
the importance of mother tongues in education and the need for the preservation
and promotion of minoritised languages. The Commission recommended education
through ‘mother tongues’ and developed action plans for documentation and
standardisation (for example, dictionary making, orthography development and
textbook writing) in Indigenous languages.
However, the Commission was not clear about how multilingualism should be
implemented in schools, and unfortunately, this well-intended policy reproduces a
narrow monolingual ideology of language education. For example, the Commission
recommends that:
‘In the schools with a predominantly multilingual context, it would be appropriate to
adopt the language of the nation [Nepali] as the medium of instruction.’ (p.38)
This recommendation embraces a monolingual ideology which latently considers the
use of multiple languages in education as a problem. It constructs and promotes a
separatist language ideology which denies the use of multiple mother tongues in the
same school. Indeed, the Commission recommends that mother tongue education is
appropriate only in a ‘monolingual area’ where the majority of students speak the
same mother tongue. In Nepal, most schools are bi-/multilingual. Although students
may come from the same ethnic group, they are emergent bi-/multilinguals who
learn Nepali and English as two mandatory languages at school. In this sense, the
recommendation of the Commission embraces the essentialist language ideology
which defines language-ethnicity relation as unified and bounded.
The national curriculum framework (2007) has highlighted the ‘basic education in
mother tongue’ as one of the main principles of the school curriculum and stated
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that ‘mother tongue’ can be taught as a local subject. However, this framework also
makes a provision that allows schools to teach subjects related to ‘information and
communication technology’ and ‘local communities’ such as animal husbandry and
poultry farming in lieu of mother tongues. As a result, most public schools have
introduced information and communication technology subjects instead of teaching
mother tongue.
Unclear policies and very little
implementation
Despite being an effective educational program, the MTB-MLE policy has not been
implemented in all mainstream schools. Rather than using ‘mother tongues’ as a
medium of instruction, some schools are teaching them as a subject, and use Nepali
and/or English as the medium of instruction.
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Advertisement of a private school in a public space of Kathmandu. Credit:
Author
There are two main reasons for this. First, the policy is not mandatory for private
schools that use English as a de facto medium of instruction and promote it as a
symbol of quality education. Second, public schools have faced growing pressure to
compete with private schools across the country. Parents and students are
increasingly attracted to the private schools that use English as a medium of
instruction, and as this trend increases, public schools are obliged to do the same.
Although there is a lack of evidence that students have returned to public schools
because of English as the medium of instruction, there is the assumption that
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English schools provide quality education.
The state’s inconsistent ideologies in education policy have played a critical role in
the dismissal of the use of mother tongues as a medium of instruction in schools. For
example, the 2019 National Education Policy states that Nepali and mother tongues
shall be the medium of instruction for the basic level of education. But this policy
includes a new provision which creates unequal value between languages and
strengthens the deficit ideology of mother tongues, questioning the relevance of the
MITB-MLE policy. The provision states that ‘STEM-Education’ (Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics) will be a core component of the school curriculum
and that these subjects can be taught in English from the early grades, which
implies that mother tongues are not appropriate for teaching STEM subjects. This
unequal treatment of languages in the MoE’s policies supports English as the
language of technological advancement and positions the relevance of mother
tongues only for teaching local subjects.
Superficially, Nepal’s present LEP policy seems to be inclusive as it gives space for
Nepali, English, and mother tongues. But at the deeper level, this policy is
ideologically charged. By legitimising the space of English as a medium language
from the early grades, the policy embraces the ideology of English as a language of
competitive and quality education. It also reinforces the perceived social, economic,
and symbolic capitals of English in local and international contexts and positions the
use of other languages as marginal.
The current situation is that Nepali is the de facto medium of instruction in the
public schools while English is the de facto medium in private schools. Private
schools rarely implement the MTB-MLE policy and therefore reinforce the deficit
ideology of mother tongues in public discourse. This has contributed to social
division between the graduates of English private schools and Nepali public schools.
It has created the widespread view that public schools are less competitive and
provide a lower quality education than private schools (which is exacerbated by the
fact that private school students generally achieve higher scores in the national
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exams than students from public schools). As this view continues to influence
language education policies, the Indigenous children’s right to speak their mother
tongue is compromised.
The right to speak and the English medium
obsession
The place of English in Nepal’s education landscape has remained at the center
since the beginning of formal education. Promoted as the language of bikās
nationalism (development nationalism) in the 1960s, English has since been
positioned as the marker of modernity, global mobility, and even quality education.
As education in English becomes attractive to students and parents, public schools
across the country are increasingly adopting it. The MoE has also revised its
Education Act to state that the medium of education in school ‘shall’ be Nepali or
English or both languages (and that ‘the education up to primary level may be
imparted in the mother tongue’). On the one hand, this policy promotes and
legitimises the use of both English and Nepali as the major languages of education.
On the other hand, rather than ensuring the right to speak mother tongues, the
policy creates an unequal language hierarchy. In this regard, applied linguist Ruanni
Tupas uses the term ‘inequalities of multilingualism’ to describe the similar situation
in the postcolonial context of the Philippines where the sociopolitical and economic
power of English is taken for granted and celebrated as a natural condition.
Studies have shown that English as a medium of instruction does not necessarily
contribute to achieving the goal of English proficiency. In the context of Nepal, as a
second and, for many students, a third language, English is the weakest language for
many early grade students. As the findings from language education studies have
shown, learning academic content through a weak language does not develop strong
academic skills in that language. Second, the students cannot fully participate in
pedagogical activities and invest their knowledge and identities in the entire
learning process in English.
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English as a medium of instruction is falsely being presented, by schools and
government officials (mostly at the local level), as a panacea to address the issue of
decreasing student number in the public schools. This obsession with English as a
medium of instruction (I am using this term to describe the glorification of EMI in
the context where English is already a compulsory subject from the first grade) has
become a core part of the discourse of educational reform and the development
agenda of the government.
However, the implementation of English as a medium of instruction has raised some
critical questions about its relevance in Nepal’s multilingual schools. First, it
reproduces the symbolic power of English as a global language and reinforces a
deficit ideology of Indigenous and minoritised languages. To have a deficit ideology
of languages is to embrace a deficit view about the speakers of those languages: in
schools where English is a medium of instruction, both private and public, students
who are not able to communicate in English are considered to be deficient in
learning and not as ‘good’ as other students. These schools use different policing
strategies such as posting signs stating ‘English-speaking zone’ on walls and
punishing students for speaking languages other than English.
As the EMI policy is increasingly normalised, students’ ‘right to speak’ in their home
languages is violated. In Nepal, English is rarely used at home and in the community
for everyday social interactions. As most students speak Nepali and other
Indigenous/minority languages in real-life contexts, they feel comfortable
communicating with their teachers and friends in these languages. However, many
students are forced to use English-only at school, through prescribed English
textbooks, EMI policy, and tests/exams being held in English. Studies have shown
that students’ participation in learning activities, particularly in the early grades, is
not meaningful and equal; the students remain silent because they are not allowed to
interact with their teachers and classmates in the languages other than English.
Students become less invested in the learning process and, more importantly, lose
their right to speak as a multilingual citizens—supposedly a right guaranteed in the
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Constitution—because their identities as multilingual speakers are not recognised in
schools where English is the medium of instruction.
Main image: Indigenous people’s protest for their rights in front of the Constituent
Assembly building in Kathmandu on May 16, 2012. Credit: Author.
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